Anna
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Anna Anker — (DAT.: Anna Kirstine Ancher (Brøndum), 18 Aug 1859, Skagen – 15 APR 1935, Skagen). The Danish artist, a realist, who played an important role in the development of Scandinavian impressionism.

Features the creative work of artist Anna Anker: Anna Anker — master of genre painting, she preferred life stories, portraits of ordinary people: fishermen, their wives and children. It is considered the first among Danish impressionist — she paid great attention to light, air and colour.

Famous paintings by artist Anna Anker: "Evening prayer", "The girl in the kitchen", "The fisherman's wife for sewing", "Sunlight in the blue room".

Anna Andersen

Anna Anker, nee Brendan, was the daughter of a merchant and innkeeper, the fifth child in a family of six. She was born in the fishing village of Skagen. Her birth is interesting story: the night she was born, at the hotel kept by her father, will stop at H. K. Andersen. All took it as a sign that the girl should be gifted with special artistic abilities. And so it happened.

From an early age she began to show creative ability and desire for painting. In 1875-1878. the girl studied at the Copenhagen girls ' school, where took a course of drawing and painting. To continue training was the only way to enter the Academy of arts. But Anna as a woman was denied. Those were the rules of the XIX century. She had only one option — to take private lessons.

Hotel Anna's father was for several years was a gathering place of artists Braginskii school. Here she met in 1874 artist Michael Anker. They married, and three years later they had a daughter Helga and became one of the heroines in the paintings of his mother.

Anna Anker and her paintings

Skagen was the perfect place to do plein air painting due to the special nature and the simple life away from the bustling city. Among the artists that visited these places were Christian Krog, which influence on the artistic development of Anna Anker. Artists like Barbizon, sought to portray ordinary life and ordinary concerns of the countryside. But Anna was always distinguished by a sincerity and quiet joy, despite the blatant poverty of fishing communities.

Anna gained popularity, becoming more and more famous, she was known in Copenhagen. In 1889 she went to Paris, where her teacher was Puvis de Chavannes. He had little influence on her creativity, but maybe Anna had borrowed from him the craving for a light background. The artist developed a personal style and own style of writing. She preferred to portray the life of her native of Skagen, wrote on "warm" homework topics: the house, the fishermen, women involved in daily work: sewing, cooking, and children.

She was the only sagansky artists, who reflected in his paintings of the religious life of villagers.

Light and air in paintings Anna Anker

Traditional realism themes and stories did not deter Anna from the desire to learn new things, see more and draw more interesting than her compatriots. She was the first of the artists of Denmark, who was to observe the "behavior" of light and air in reality and on the canvas.

In her paintings often found the sun's rays penetrating through the window glass. The shadow from the frame on the wall allows you to see the play of light and shadow, color interaction with airspace. The Danish art historian Peter Larsen finds the special features of Anna as impressionist, distinguishes her painting from the French. He notices that she was not afraid of real life and did not seek, in contrast, for the elusive moment. About the artist wrote that she was the first among the Danish painters who was able "to catch a sunbeam". Critics rightfully regarded it a great colorist, adding meanwhile that it is not the main thing. More important and interesting they found the stories themselves, which she had chosen.

In 1904 Anna Anker received the medal of Ackerberg, and later still award Ingenio and Arti. It was she who represented Danish art abroad.

The works of Anna and Michael Anker is in the Skagen Museum, the Royal Museum of fine arts in Copenhagen, the Hirschsprung Collection, etc.

Anna and Michael Anker was depicted on the banknote 1000 DKK series 1997.

Author: Lyudmila Lebedeva